Like many run clubs, the members of the N.E.L.A. Patrol Runners gather in the early morning to get their steps in and socialize. Unlike other run clubs, this one’s trying to stop a kidnapping.
In January, Claudia Yañez founded a run club that patrols for Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Northeast Los Angeles. “As runners, we have the responsibility to patrol,” Yañez says. Compared to people in cars, they can interact with the people in the neighborhood, and see things more closely.”
Yañez passes on patrolling techniques she learned from a training session in Boyle Heights led by the mutual aid group Community Self-Defense Coalition. When she and her crew jog through neighborhoods like El Sereno, Highland Park, Cypress Park, and Lincoln Heights, they’re implementing what’s known as the “SALUTE” method. That means they collect information about the size of the officers’ party, activity like an arrest or intimidation, the location sighting, with crossstreets, if possible, uniform descriptions, time and date, and the equipment on hand, like guns or tasers.
If the N.E.L.A. Patrol Runners see any trouble, they call a rapid response hotline managed by Union del Barrio, a political organization that has been helping Latin American immigrants for 45 years. “We’re public observers, and our goal is to verify ICE presence,” founder Claudia Yañez recalls telling the group at their second meeting in mid-February. “If there is ICE presence, we post it on social media to alert the community, but we don’t interfere physically.”
Since January 2025, DHS and ICE officers have, according to recently filed lawsuits, allegedly stalked, intimidated, and illegally detained public observers. As described in a class-action lawsuit filed in February, after filming ICE agents, Maine resident Colleen Fagan claimed that an officer scanned her face with surveillance technology and threatened to add her to a government database. (A U.S. attorney later testified that the agent was in violation of DHS policy, and Fagan had not been entered into any databases.) That same month, in Minnesota, where both Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed in January, a public observer said that ICE officers allegedly drew guns, broke her car window, then detained her for eight hours.
Out of caution, many activists have donned masks or bullet-proof vests as a means of protection. N.E.L.A. Patrol Runners, however, wear their typical gear, like Nike hoodies and Brooks sneakers, because Yañez doesn’t want the group to look suspicious. “Being a runner is already a disguise.”
Yañez has handed out whistles, just in case the group sees ICE at the checkpoints they set on their runs. Usually, they stop at places where street vendors might set up their food stands, like Home Depot or the Hispanic grocery store Super A Foods.
Yañez has been a runner since high school. In early 2024, she founded a run club for women and non-binary people called Mitoteras, which is slang in Spanish for gossipy, drama-loving characters, or chismosas. The group had raised money for ICE detainees and street vendor support, but Yañez knew that she and her community wanted to do more.
The catalyst for launching N.E.L.A. Patrol Runners came in late January, after Yañez learned that two of her neighbors were detained while waiting at her nearest bus stop. “It hurts to see people being taken,” Yañez says. “It connects harder because that’s my neighbor. Even if I don’t know them, I feel close to them.” Afterward, Yañez began implementing the observer techniques she had learned during her solo runs. “If you live in communities where people have been kidnapped, you’re already patrolling,” Yañez says. “Why not invite others?”